St Augustine down to Key West

     It looks like I've been a little slacker when it comes to keeping up with my ramblings.  But the fact of the matter is we've been extremely busy getting here.  It may seem strange, but even planning a 4-5 hour travel day actually ends up being an 8 hour day.  Breaking camp and getting ready to move takes time.  And then setting up at the other end causes delays.  By the time we're done, there just isn't time for this.  But we've slowed the pace considerably, so I'm gonna see if I can catch up a bit.

     On Tuesday, 1/28/2014, we headed south into Florida for St Augustine.  The Princess, being the smart-ass that she is, send a photo to her mother of a "Welcome to Florida" sign covered in snow.  There's a pretty good chance that it was taken from over near Pensacola but I'm not sure.  I saw some photos from Pensacola showing an inch or so of snow on the ground.  That must have been exciting.  Looking forward to getting together with my cousin Annette over that way later on in the month and see just how terrible it must have been.

     We arrived in St Augustine a little later than we wanted, but settled into a nice Florida State Campground called Anastasia State Park.  We met some nice folks from Minnesota traveling with a 1 year old yellow lab in a 22' travel trailer.  Looked a little cozy to me but they were having a ball and that's what it's all about.  They gave us a few ideas as to where to visit as we continue west into New Mexico and Arizona, but strangely, we haven't found anyone that had many recommendations about visiting Texas.  San Antonio always comes up, but after that, not much more.  I guess you have to be from Texas???

     The weather in St Augustine was a little cool for the locals, but Debbie and I fared quite well.  We had a few hours to chill before our dinner date with Cheryl and Mike, Debbie's friends from SUNY Plattsburgh.  So we walked around the old section of St Augustine, watching the sun go down and white Christmas lights come on all over the downtown area.

     There was a beautiful bridge separating downtown from the island with several pirate ships anchored in the harbor.  St Augustine was quite the pirate hangout in the days.  Castillo de San Marcos, now a U.S. Park Service National Monument looked like a 'must see' but we just didn't have time on this visit.  We've put St Augustine on the list for a return visit and plan to spend at least a week there when we come back.  We did get the opportunity to visit the The Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, America's First Parish,

founded September, 8 1565.  Information and additional photos are available at www.thefirstparish.org.

Seems like the Irish are everywhere.  Inside we found an Altar of St Patrick adorned with beautiful green mosaic tiles.

     We continued on the Irish theme, meeting Mark and Cheryl later on for dinner at Meehan's Pub overlooking the harbor.  The food, drink, and company were excellent and Debbie and I had a great time catching up.  I tried to slip in a few questions about their Plattsburgh exploits but they did a great job dodging the questions. The 70's were a great time!

After a wonderful evening, we said our goodbye's but promised to return to St Augustine again.

     On Wednesday we continued our journey south searching for warm weather and sunshine.  We've been in rain for 3 days and it seems to be getting old.  Although not having to shovel rain is a great thing!  We traveled just a few hours down to a Florida State Park just north of Jupiter, Fl on Rt. 1.  We checked into Jonathan Dickens State Park after experiencing a ranger with an attitude at the check-in.  I guess she just wasn't having a good day, and made sure that Debbie understood all the rules about changing sites the following day.  We had to be off our site by 1 PM and we would not be allowed onto our new site until 3 PM!!!  I hope she doesn't find out that the next morning we found a nice ranger, and we moved to our new site at 11AM.  We felt like rebels!  On Thursday we drove up to visit my Cousin Tim up in Port St Lucie.  He and his wife Norma have an incredible house!  Absolutely gorgeous!  He's now my favorite cousin, and Debbie and I hope to move in with him when we're old and fragile.  We missed Norma this trip, but hope that all her family is doing well.  Molly and Tim were great hosts and we had a great visit.

  If you get the opportunity to visit Timmy and Norma, remind him that there's a locked gate out front that keep us common folk out.  Perhaps he'll share the gate code with you and you won't have to sneak through behind an unsuspecting resident.

     Well, next stop is Key West!  The weather promises to be in the high 70's/low 80's with plenty of sunshine.  Can't wait to get there!